


Time Left Lingering Loses Face

by Crowley (Tay_Cipher7)



Series: Two-Faced No-Face [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Heartbreak, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Cannibalism, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pre-Canon, Will Knows, at least not yet, doesnt really follow canon either, no beta we die like men, promise ring, the Opera House (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:14:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23555899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tay_Cipher7/pseuds/Crowley
Summary: “Cut the shite, Hannibal.” Will whispered, his blood growing colder under his skin. “You know exactly what I mean. For once in your life give me the truth. Give me a straight answer. It’s the least you could do after all.”Will Graham died that night. Not by his own hand, not by anyone else but Hannibal’s.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: Two-Faced No-Face [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1695406
Comments: 9
Kudos: 48





	1. Where The Truth Lay Silenced

  
Will felt a chill settle deep in his bones. The meal Hannibal had served them both, paired with a lovely red wine, going tasteless and dry in his now-parched mouth. A deep-seated betrayal making his heart thump slow and painfully behind his ribs. 

_‘So it was all a lie. Everything. Was there any truth? Any at all?’_ He thought desperately. 

Will resumed the practiced movements and table étiqueté that was instilled in him long ago, taking another piece of the full bodied meal in front of him into his mouth. He felt dead inside. Hollow like he’d never been before.

“Was any of it true? Was anything? Or was I simply a plaything for you to use up and then toss once you’ve had you’re fun.” He asked before he could talk himself out of it. Will could feel his throat tightening as his mind screamed at him. ‘ _What did you expect?’_ It said, ‘ _for him to care for you?’_

Hannibal looked at him quizzically. A hint of surprise, a dash of incredulous as he stopped mid-motion. 

“I’m afraid that I’m at a loss to what you could possible be referring to, Will.” He said, setting his forearm back onto the tables edge, forgoing the bite on his fork in favour of humouring the empath.

“Cut the shite, Hannibal.” Will whispered, his blood growing colder under his skin. “You know exactly what I mean. For once in your life give me the truth. Give me a straight answer. It’s the least you could do after all.” He said sharply as he continued the dull consumption of the once-impressive meal; his grip on the utensils making his knuckles white with tension. It had become little interest to him now. He wouldn’t care if it were Chiltons tongue or just an expired fish. His reactions would be just as lifeless and uninspired. Just as he was starting to become. 

“I see.” Hannibal said, his voice cautious but dangerous almost in a way that Will imagined a passive, but hungry, mongoose would be to a passing snake.

Will’s heart jumped horribly. So this is how it was after all. His mind not playing tricks on him for once.   


Will spoke again, “Should have thought as much. Consider me played. Like an ignorant queen. Checkmate; I lost a game I didn’t even know I was playing. I should have expected it. I suppose that’s all this was after all. A game of chess to pass your time?” Will’s voice did not wobble, did not crack in heartbreak or raise in anger and betrayal.   


He couldn’t bring himself to feel right now. He had no reason to. The forts of his mind cracking and crumbling like sand castles. Looks like he will have to make new ones. More and impenetrable. “I will not be dining with you from here on. I have no wish in continuing this game. It will not end in my favour after all.”

Hannibal just kept staring at him, like he was trying to understand a puzzle that had yet to come together. Will failed to look up from his plate and into those endless maroon pools since his epiphany. He knew what he would see. The monster he loved so, and the man who held obvious disinterest in nothing but the game he had been an unwilling participant to. 

“Will.” Was all he said. Voice as monotonous as always, but dark and promising as normal as well. 

Will did not shift his attention. Instead, his vacant mind supplied questions that would never be answered: did he not want to give the game up? Perhaps that’s why he hadn’t the courtesy to answer a simple question. Rather rude. _‘Such irony,’_ Will wanted to smirk in bitter amusement. But he couldn’t. His facial expressions locked down on a resting disinterest.

“I would have rather spent my time _in_ on the punch line. It’s obvious you had many. I still remember the one from the opera. Do you? ‘ _A feast must present itself._ ’ And apparently one I would have never had the opportunity to enjoy. Oh what you’ve done to me, Hannibal.” Will finally looked up into those maroon eyes, “Are you proud? Breaking me so thoroughly and so often? The scar tissue of my mind, now thick and and unbreakable.” 

Will watched, feeling a flicker of a wicked sense of satisfaction in seeing that piercing gaze progressively widen. “So board of a passive playboy that you had to convince me you were my friend, my anchor, my confidant, my reason to stay afloat?” Will’s voice had an edge to it, one he has never used with Hannibal.

“Tell me, though I know you won’t, did you laugh? Every time I found myself in a place I had no memory of arriving to—did you laugh? When I spoke to you of my deepest desires—did you laugh? When you fed me each of the victims I had to empathise with the day before—did you laugh? Was I nothing but entertainment?” Will’s smile, if you could call it that, was a bitter, humourless one. A smile full of self loathing, of resentment, of lifeless pleasure at finally, _finally_ , being in on the joke. 

“How long until you threw me away? To the wolves of a passing asylum—or perhaps death was your plan? A more suited fit?” Will once again found a perverse pleasure within the chill of his own being, at the sight of Hannibal Lecter, the Chesapeake Ripper, speechless at his own table—the food in front of him spoiling, becoming colder as it’s ignored. 

“To think I found something akin to love. To think I found a solution to aching lonely ness. But I know better now.” Will’s voice going flat again as he slowly stood up on stiff legs.  “Trust, love, loyalty, happiness—it’s all for fools, isn’t it? Oh, what a fool I am,” He whispered. 

“You’re free Hannibal! Free of your burden—of your jester. Jack won’t hear a thing from my lips. I’ve always wanted to quit, as you know; his oppression and hypocrisy—sickening. Perhaps...perhaps it’s time for me to finally do so.” The lilt of his voice, nearly imperceptible.

And with that, Will left. His movements were not rushed as he felt so cold, so empty, so dull and lifeless. His mind still worked against him, but not in the way it always had. It allowed him to mimic. 

He stepped outside Hannibal’s house and into the thundering rain. The blue pea coat on his shoulders was soaked through instantly, and the curls on his head ended up plastered to his skin. 

_‘How quaint,’_ he thought, letting out a soft sigh. It was simply that. All emotions and feeling left his limbs. It was only a thought. There was no anger. No sadness. No joy or relief to accompany it. Just....a thought. A bitter one.

“I shouldn’t have expected anything less.” Will mumbled to himself, “The universe is a savage. And I’m simply the next meal.”  


Will Graham died that night. Not by his own hand; not by anyone else but Hannibal’s. Will would continue his life—or rather, the one he would assume once he left the cobblestone steps—and continue it in a robotic dedication. In detachment. In absence.


	2. Where Brittle Hearts Lay Scattered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal jumped up, making long, quick strides to his front door.
> 
> His maroon eyes drifted downwards at the soft glint they registered. What he saw made his heart break, shatter, and thump painfully against his ribs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a continuation of the previous chapter via Hannibal’s point of view.

  
Hannibal felt his heart go still in his chest once he realized what just happened. The meal in front of him now the most worthless thing in the world as he threw the utensils, once griped tightly in his fists, onto his plate. Hannibal jumped up, making long, quick strides to his front door.

“Fuck—!“ He heard himself say, “Shit—!“ he continued, throwing open the large mahogany door Will just walked out of.   


Hannibal was met with the deafening sound of the rain and thunder that fell violently at his feet. The pace of the falling rain, matching the erratic beat his heart. He saw and empty street. Not a single light. No moving vehicle. Nothing. Where he had at least expected to find Will near enough to reach, only the darkness and rain greeted him with such enthusiastic excitement. 

Hannibal’s maroon eyes drifted downwards at the soft glint they registered. What he saw made his heart break, shatter, and thump painfully against his ribs. The black-gold band, crested with a small-set emerald, lay alone in the water, it’s owner gone. 

Hannibal still remembered the look on Will’s face when Hannibal gave it to him,  _ ‘A promise, Will.’  _ He had said, _ ‘An eternal one. Till the day we become more, and then to the day we leave and ascend into the heavens, or perhaps hell. But together.’ _

Hannibal still remembered the tears that clung to Will’s long, dark lashes; the flush of his cheeks and the tips of his ears; the tremble of his hands as he held them out to grip the promise ring between them; the whispered, broken,  _ ‘thank you’  _ through the cloaked sob, muffled by where his face was pressed to Hannibal’s chest. Hannibal remembered how elated he had felt. The adoration that he let consume him that day.

 _ ‘Forever and always? No lies, no secrets? Promise?_ _’_ Will had whispered as he’d looked up at Hannibal through thick lashes, hope consuming his expression—and voice by association. Hannibal could’ve only smiled then.  _ ‘Forever and always, Mymilaise._ _’_ Hannibal had said back.

“What have I done?” was he only thing he could grant himself to ask. He struggled to keep himself up-right as he stared at the ring. He was forced to prop himself up on the door frame as he reached to pick the precious object up.

“Why didn’t I say anything? Why did I let him think that?” Hannibal’s mind whites-out sporadically, questions of ‘ _the look in his eyes, like there was nothing left behind them, did I do that?_ ’ And ‘ _how could he think that?_ ’ Consumed him, overpowering even the slightest thought of ‘ _what gave me away_ ’ or ‘ _did it start as he had said?_ ’

All he knew was that he had to get him back. His Will. The one who loved him. The one who he loved. The only one who would have accepted both man and monster.

He had to explain, had to get him back. Hannibal didn’t know what he would do if he couldn’t. But he couldn’t dwell on it, the longer he leaned against the door, wet and pensive, the farther away his Beloved got from the circle of his arms and the warmth of his bed.

**Author's Note:**

> So this was just something I had on my mind for a while so I wrote it all down and let it simmer in the back of my notes app.
> 
> Then I decided to give it a little polish and post it rather than do it such a disservice and let it collect dust.
> 
> So I hope you enjoyed~ Comments and Kudos are appreciated!


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